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Lloyd Gaines
|sex = |location = Chicago, Illinois|disappeared = March 19, 1939|missing for = |height = Unknown|weight = Unknown|classification = |image = }}Lloyd Lionel Gaines (also known as "Lloyd L. Gaines") was a young man last seen leaving his fraternity house in Chicago, Illinois. His family believes he was a victim of homicide, while others believe that he had left to start a new life. Background Gaines was born in 1911 in Mississippi, and moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1926. Gaines became a prominent civil rights figure, known for being the plaintiff in Gaines v. Canada, which started when Gaines was denied admission to a law school at the University of Missouri for being black, but the state of Missouri had offered to pay his tuition for a law school in an adjacent state. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Gaines, requiring states to provide black students in-state education like they do for white students. This meant that Gaines was allowed to attend the University of Missouri's law school. While waiting for classes to begin, Gaines struggled financially, working odd jobs and giving speeches for the NAACP. While he publicly expressed his determination to attend the law school, in private Gaines feared it would be too dangerous for him to attend. Thus, he ultimately decided to not go. Instead, he traveled to Chicago to find work. Disappearance In Chicago, brothers at an Alpha Phi Alpha took him in, and Gaines also reconnected with a former neighbor, Nancy Paige. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Paige noticed that Gaines appeared distressed, as if he seemed "to be running away from something", meaning that he had likely been receiving death threats for his role in the Gaines v. Canada case. On the evening of March 19, Gaines informed the housekeeper of the Alpha Phi Alpha house that he was going out to buy some stamps, even though the weather was cold and wet. He left the house, and has never been seen again. Investigation/Aftermath Gaines' disappearance was largely ignored for several months, since he had a history of travelling alone for periods of time without telling his friends and family. When the Missouri Supreme Court's rehearing for his case could finally begin in late 1939, they started to look for him, but he was nowhere to be found. His case then immediately received widespread attention. However, because his disappearance had never been reported to any law enforcement agency, his case was not formally investigated for decades. Rumors circulated that he had been killed for retaliating racial discrimination (this is what his family believed), committed suicide, or had been paid to disappear and was currently living in Mexico City or New York. In 2006, Gaines was granted an honorary law degree by the University of Missouri-Columbia. In 2007, the FBI agreed to look into his case, alongside other missing persons cold cases from the civil rights era. The rumors of him being either murdered or living in Mexico City are the mostly scenarios in his case. Links * * Category:Missing people from Illinois Category:1939 disappearances Category:Young adults Category:1900s births Category:No age progression Category:Cases over 80 years old